Author: christenadowsett

When the sun peeks out over the horizon, it is with squinted eyes; sleep still dripping from the edges, much like mine. She is blue when she wakes up, a bit sad but ready to do her duty all the same. Much like me.

I leave my house each morning with childish things in my heart and a 20 shilling coin in my pocket, knowing that I must protect this treasure until steady hands ask for it.

The smell of meat is always the first greeting of my day as I pass by the butcher and on lucky days it is followed by a waft from the bakery across the street. A freshly lit cigarette followed by not so freshly thrown trash.

A sunset view from my roommate’s window overlooking the Central Business District (CBD) of Nairobi. Follow me on Instagram: ChristenaDowsett

It is a short walk to the bus. I have learned to time my pace to that of oncoming movements. Some days they barely stop to collect me and my body is thrown up the steps as the vehicle continues to lurch forward. These are my favorite days, when I know that I slide into this life and its patterns. A seat opens up at the next stop and I replace their body with mine, pulling the precious from my pocket.

I observe, for the millionth time, the quiet conversations held by eyes and hands as money is exchanged. Coins collectively jingle, a quick reminder of services being rendered. One person signaling that they are paying for the person behind them, another one complaining that they haven’t received change yet. All without words. It’s a dance that I enjoy seeing played out before me and revel when I can seamlessly chime in.

The bus arrives at the final stop. “Mwisho, mwisho. Fasta, Fasta!” he says with a cadence that pushes you out the door from behind. A few feet away I make my first encounter of the morning. A man gently grabs my arm and fans his peacock feathers while using words to express his interest. He is soft so I leave my anger for another day and simply walk on.

I zig-zag through town. One day this way, the next, that. A woman sings “Hand-ker-chief! Hand-ker-chief.” We make eye contact most days and we both smile and greet each other with eyebrows thrown to the sky. We both know, but we have never spoken. A small man with a large head sets up his books to sell. He has never acknowledged me, which draws me to him all the more.

A homeless man with crippled legs waits for me to pass. He smiles. We shake hands. I ask how he is. He says fine. He asks how I am. I say fine. In the beginning he used to ask for money with his hands, and then his words. Now he knows and we are content to see each other and let go. He is handsome and kind. I like him.

Miles to go, I carry on. Step by step. Weaving through human traffic like a video game. I pass some of the same people every day. A Rastafarian with a shower cap covering his dreads. We notice each other but never at the same time. A dainty Muslim woman who wears the brightest outfits and always matches perfectly. I don’t think she has ever seen me.

On the next corner where I merge with the main highway, a Maasai man stands, picturesque. Sometimes preaching nonsense. Sometimes stoically in statued silence. He sees me but he does not react. He clutches a metal scepter made of pipe with a curved red tip at the end. Over the weekend I saw him on the other side of town pushing a cart. I wondered what he does all day. Where his mind goes.

I walk. Up and down hills. Across plains. Fielding stares and stolen glances. Heads turned. Eyes wide open. I feel the extra parts of me move on their own and try not to notice. Today I don’t mind. They are free to pass judgment and I claim my freedom not to receive it.

As the final climb starts, I jump over railroad tracks, careful to check first for oncoming traffic. Early on, a train passed behind me a little too close for comfort. On the other side I am welcomed with kind words by my motorcycle friends. I walk between them processional style, several on either side, and offer fist bumps and morning greetings.

They once caught me catching a ride from a motorcycle that was not one of them and responded with, “Why didn’t you call us? You know we love you and have to take care of you.”

Halfway up a steep hill, sweat finally starts to pour from my forehead and I struggle to wipe it away before it returns. Chris, the guard, opens the gate and extends an excited handshake. The other guard, whose name I have forgotten, tells me in Swahili that I am looking very healthy. We smile.

At the office I high-five the secretary, Ann, and hug my office mate, John.

It’s been about four months since my bag was lost in France. While those four months have been happily spent in East Africa, I’m back in Paris with only carry on luggage. Couldn’t afford to risk that again.

May was filled with the wedding festivities of my (now former) roommate, Eunice. Her special day took almost 5,000 images out of me, something I never thought possible and I hope never happens again. But it was amazing to be there and helping out on her big day!

Athieng, aged 16, washes her face at the family home in Mingkaman, South Sudan before heading to Padaar Primary School. She said “I enjoy going to school because I want to have a good future. I have seen that people who go to school can get employed. I would like to become a doctor. Right now not enough people have this knowledge and I see people suffering. I want to have the knowledge to help them.”Nyachan (15 months) has her height measured during a testing for Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) at the Save the Children stabilisation centre in Waat, South Sudan. “When my child got sick my neighbour told me that I should bring her here as they would be able to make her better,” said her mother, Nyawour (35).Nyaping and her children wait for milk to boil after milking the goats given by Save the Children in Waat, South Sudan. The family came from Malakal to Waat, South Sudan in December 2013. They were given four female goats and one male goat in order to help provide milk for the children and income for the family.

July I was at home in Nairobi, resting, and trying to wrap my head around what’s coming in the next few months. For those of you who haven’t heard, I will be starting a full time job in January with an American NGO (non-profit) called World Concern. This has been in the works since I left Canada in April but I’m more and more confident that this is the right next step for me. I have added many of you to my newsletter list but it seems that for over half of you, the email went to spam. Bummer! If you want to know more about what I’ll be doing for the next two years, and how to help me in that process, you can check out the original newsletter I sent out. I also did a one day shoot with them in Narok, Kenya to get a couple shots for their gift catalog.

August was spent working on my personal project in Turkana (which I will continue to work on while with World Concern). It was a good couple of weeks which turned out some really amazing images and a great story that I will be sharing soon, once it’s published!

Father Florian prepares for sunday mass in Illeret, Kenya. Florian has been working in the area since 2002 with the Daasanach tribe.An alter boy greets Father Florian after a service in Illeret, Kenya. Florian has been working in the area since 2002 with the Daasanach tribe.

September so far has been spent in France where I attended a massive photojournalism conference in Perpignan and then have been working in Dijon, France for Wycliffe Global Alliance. Later this week I head to Senegal with them to finish up a three-part story on the spread of language around the world.

Photo courtesy of Maya HautefeuilleFrancis prepares to lead a Bible study with other members from his church in Dijon, France. He moved from Dakkar, Senegal three years to France for school.

The good news… is that from beginning of October till at least December I will be stateside and want to see as many of your shinning faces as possible. Right now my locations for various lengths of time will be Texas, Kentucky, Seattle, NYC, and North Carolina. If you’re in one of those places give me a shout and let’s make a date!

It was the same weather on both ends. When I left Dallas on Mother’s day there were tornados circling us like a pack of wild dogs. At least for the morning hours… which was enough to throw the whole airport into utter chaos. I was lucky enough to get a direct flight from Dallas to Paris instead trying catch a connecting flight through Chicago as originally planned.

“If you don’t find your bag when you get to Paris, file a complaint first thing, okay? I can’t guarantee where this thing will end up.” The stewardess at the counter told me.

True to her word when I got to the baggage claim area I heard my name being called over the loud speaker. A few no-problem-at-all’s and I-thought-this-might-happen’s and some paperwork and I was out of there.

So the first two days in Paris were spent in sweatpants. Not that I care that much but they get old after awhile. And in Paris no less. Not where you want your inner redneck to shine.

“Madame Dowsett, your bag is here, we are delivering it to you in a few hours,” my new friend Lucie from CDG airport told me.

Many more than a few hours later the delivery guy shows up with a huge smile on his face. An internal frown washed over me when I realized that no, sorry, that is not my bag. He tried to convince me that it was my bag, and when that failed he proceeded to hit on me. Great.

Several more days and phone calls later when I was about to leave Angers, France (1.5 hours train ride from Paris) after visiting friends there – I get news that somehow my bag is in the town of Le Mans. A town that our train would be passing through.

And then I found out that our train did not actually stop there.

Glorious theatrical feats ran through my head as I pictured the perfect timing of someone throwing the bag from the platform while the train was moving as the whole station cheered in excitement and awe that my bag was finally back in my loving arms.

The reality was that the train slowed to an overly dramatic crawl as we passed through Le Mans and I was forced to stare longing out the window, knowing that my bag was out there, somewhere, all alone and possibly lost forever.

The next plan of action was to send the bag to Nairobi. I knew this sounded like a horrible idea, but there were no other options now. I wrote down my address and how to get to my address (ie: go to that one bank next to that one market in that one part of town and take your first right). I also resigned myself to never seeing my clothes or cherished items again.

You see the problem is not that my clothes were missing really. Or that my suitcase was gone. The problem is that when you only have one bag of clothes in the world, you realize just how specialized your life has become. I have spent the last three years whittling down my life to fit in one such bag. All the necessities for me to live anywhere in the world well are in that bag. And to recreate what’s inside that bag might also take years.

When I reached Nairobi I soberly walked through customs. No one even batted an eye at me.

“This girl has a backpack and a messenger bag. She has nothing to declare.” They thought.

But for the next two weeks I declared almost daily how much I missed my clothes and my ice pack and my belt and my sandals and my purse. Declarations galore. Much to the patience of my roommates ears.

The saga continued every two days for two weeks when the baggage claim guys in Paris would email or call and say my bag was on the next flight to Nairobi. Out to the airport I would truck, sign all the paperwork, hand search through lost luggage, only to confirm that again, it was not there. Call Paris back. Oops, sorry, your bag got kicked off the flight. At one point the bag was lost completely but found again three days later in Amsterdam.

I started having dreams of blasting social media with me and my suitcase. “Last seen on mothers day” with this endearing picture of us together. A lost puppy, a lost suitcase.

Now we come to last night. A surprise phone call from the airport at JKIA in Nairobi saying that my bag was found. Three hours of driving to the airport. Ten minutes searching for it. And at last. We were reunited. I will not lie that I almost started crying. Peace.

The final round of comic relief found us outside the terminal when it started raining. I was waiting for my friend to circle around and pick us up when the skies opened up and drenched us.

I stared blankly at the bag, blinked and then chuckled to myself.

After three weeks of separation, it’s so sweet to wear my own jeans again. I do not take this victory lightly.

I have debated sharing this for a while now. A few people noticed but not enough to make a big deal out of it. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it at least. Everyone has their own problems and their own weight to carry. I told a few people, those that could help, but for the most part I kept silent. And it was okay to do so. I needed the time and the freedom.

Despite our role as transmitters and amplifiers of information, when trauma hits home, journalists are hesitant to be honest if they are suffering, much less ask for help. “Journalism is one of the last careers to acknowledge the world of trauma,” Newman said. “The culture of the profession says, ‘We are observers; we aren’t the ones to be observed.’” – A Mental-Health Epidemic In The Newsroom

Many of you know that I have been in and out of Africa for the last three years. It’s been a beautiful journey and a hard one. Many things were mended and many things were broken worse than they were before. Some days it’s the only place on earth I want to be. Other days I’d rather be anywhere but here. But this is normal. Everyone feels that way at one time or another.

The problem started early last year when I stopped leaving my apartment. And then stopped leaving my room. And then stopped leaving my bed. All of this was before a series of significant deaths marched through my door.

It was more than depression. It was rooted in a deep understanding that the world was flawed and I was flawed and a hopelessness that said it cannot change. I cannot change. The world is stuck on this trajectory of self-destruction and I am incapable of adding anything good to it. I have failed.

I started having panic attacks several times a month and then several times a week. Around January 2015 I had nearly, completely, shut down. You can always pull yourself together for an appearance, but the other side of that is wasteland.

It became more and more clear that I needed a break. And a good long one if I were going to survive much longer. No more refugee camps. No more death and dying. No more survivor stories. No more.

But where are you supposed to go? I dreamed of isolation as if this would cure me. If I could just be alone long enough, if I could just really feel these things strong enough, maybe there was hope.

I am blessed to have so many good people supporting me who pointed me in the direction of L’Abri. Some of you will know this name from the theologian Dr. Francis Schaeffer who founded it in the 1950’s.

I was given the opportunity to attend the branch in Canada outside Vancouver and it was here that things started to make sense again. For two months a group of six to 20 of us ate together, read together, worked together, and lived together. We all came with different questions, different life paths, different hopes and dreams. But it was through this process that I learned to slow down. To invest in others and myself. For most of 2014 I hardly spent more than a week in one place at a time. Here I spent two months with the same people, learning to love them and be loved by them. I laughed, fully and often. I played guitar again. Started learning to draw. Made crafts. I felt strongly and wept bitterly. Was held by those who had come to know my story and come to love me all the more for it.

I checked my emails a few times a week and Facebook on Sundays. A few sporadic phone calls to my family. But otherwise I was isolated in this little modern co-ed monastic life. I also didn’t take my camera, which was one of the wisest things I could have done. It was good to see photography as art again, even if it was only through my iphone. It was good to take the power away from photography. To see it as a tool, not a device with salvific strength.

There are many more things to be said of this time in my life. Of the brokenness that was there and still is. Of the letting go and receiving. But what I really want to say is, mental illness, whether one grows into it or one is born with it, is something to be cared for and listened to. Do not think yourself so strong.

When a fire burns our body, we go to the hospital and rest. When fire burns our minds we let it burn until we feel nothing.

“That culture needs to change… But it is up to those of us in the field to change the way we think and talk about mental illness.” – Gabriel Arana

My own struggles with weight issues started to come to fruition around the same time as I lost over 100 lbs. After losing the weight, something in my mind snapped and I felt that I deserved the life I suddenly had created and began taking advantage of everything I had worked so hard for. I gained much of the weight back over the next year.

I met Hector for the first time hours before he died on December 8th 2014 in San Antonio, Texas. Seated in his chair, talking on the phone with a peaceful look on his face. When he ended the call he was delighted to engage with us. Over the weekend I had been listening and reading hours of interviews to help Lisa compile some of the video for the project on him.

When we met, I felt like I knew him in ways that I’m not even sure I know myself. I saw his pain and his fears. I felt my own weakness bleeding through his words. We talked for hours. About counseling. His childhood. His dreams and fears. I told him that I knew what I went through to lose so much weight the first time and that I didn’t want to have to go through it again. He said he understood and calmed my fears. I felt like a child at his feet. Listening. Absorbing all I could from what he had learned thus far about life. He was kind and genuine.

“Unfortunately, I can’t stop cold turkey,” he said during one of the previous interviews with Lisa. “That’s what makes it so hard, that you can never stop eating.” Something that he reiterated during our time together. He compared his life to a druggie having to take a pinch of coke every day. Or an alcoholic having to only take one shot. Every day. I had never thought of this before.

There was hope in his words that things were about to change for him. That maybe this time he would go through counseling with his new insurance. Maybe this time he would try fighting for himself and not for others.

“My life is a cautionary tale,” he said; a phrase that he repeated often.

I asked him what was the main point he wanted to get across from the project and without hesitation his response was that other’s would learn from his family and his mistakes in dealing with children who are overweight. When I told him that his story had already impacted my life, a big smile washed over his face. I kept thinking how brave he was to open up so much of his life to a journalist, to inspect and analyze, how much trust had been developed between him, his family and Lisa.

This is why I think his story is so powerful. As Lisa said at one point, his story is not just compelling because of what he’s gone through but even more so because of the way he articulates the struggle in all of us. His words are vibrant and breathtaking. He opened his heart to us in a way that we rarely do with those closest to us.

I am also inspired by the dedication and empathy Lisa showed while working with Hector. I believe in the power journalism has to change the world but it’s refreshing to watch it unfold before me on so many different levels. The way she interacted with the family the night he died was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in journalism. She mourned with them, heartbroken, while still fighting to tell his story with the most impact.

May Hector’s story and Lisa’s work be warning sign to those of us who struggle with this and bring compassion to those who don’t.

If I had more energy I would write a rather lengthy post about the woes of being a freelancer and shooting something that, turns out, not one wants to pay for. Which makes sense because like 200 people were arrested in NYC tonight and like only two here.

I will instead just share some photos I would have sent to an agency. Otherwise these images will forever live on a hard drive comforted by cob webs and dust mites.

I met Korie James in 2009 when I did my internship with BTL in Kenya during which time I wrote an article on him and his work with Bible translation.

I was young, 20 to be exact. I still understand little of Kenya but my thoughts were far less developed then; though perhaps my heart was more open and willing to see.

2009 was a horrible famine year. Still the worst of the last five. As I interviewed James I heard his passion for his people. A sadness mixed with resiliency coated his words. He had hope but it was a tired hope. One of long-suffering.

A few weeks later, when I was home in the U.S. preparing to celebrate my much awaited 21st birthday, Korie sent me an email. He had made it back to his family with a truckload of food but he was too late. He had a few hours left with his mother before she died of starvation.

In a song by Bon Iver he says, “At once I knew I was not magnificent.” This phrase has been on repeat for months now as I have fallen apart many times over. Under the grief that death brings. I have lost my mind through many world rotations. I have believed the worst of man. Of myself. I have doubted the power of light. Of truth. If truth even ever existed.

Those who have walked through it with me have been braver than myself to sit in the rippled silence surrounded by daunting unanswered questions. There have been only a few words. And when they do come they are covered in a shroud of unexplainable weightiness.

As the cloak has slowly cascaded around me, and I begin to see the world more clearly again, I recognize a renewed sense that I am not here to save. Which is by far the most relieving thing that has come to mind in ages.

I am here to love and be loved. And it is in loving that we also share in the suffering of others.

“The only life we know now is suffering,” a Daasanach village elder told me in late 2013 while sitting inside his dome-shaped hut near Illeret, Kenya. “Twelve to 15 years ago things started changing, especially the climate. Things are upside down now. Every year is worse than last year and it makes me scared for the future,” he said.

Traditionally the Daasanach are a nomadic community on the border of Kenya and Ethiopia, but in recent years they have put an emphasis on fishing and have adopted a more sedentary lifestyle. They are a tribe of between 60,000 and 80,000 people and are a marginalized people group with little political power, remotely isolated, exploited, and vulnerable to famine and disease. Because of their mobility, they are given little attention by either nation’s government. Their geographical isolation leads to further neglect. By road, it takes three full days of driving from Nairobi to reach a decent-sized town, with scarcely a fellow vehicle to be seen along the way.

Over these last five years I have seen the Daasanach as having a culture of dying. They live on the brink. Death comes often. Indiscriminate of age or gender. It comes with a vengeance.

“Our cows and goats are so skinny they often don’t produce milk,” a tribal elder said. “We work hard to tend to these animals just for them to die? It’s just like we, ourselves, are being slaughtered. Now we are just waiting for people to die. It won’t be a surprise to hear of someone’s passing.”

Death has never been more real to me than it is now and in this grieving I am also realizing that they have a pretty accurate handle on life, based on this understanding of death.

Because when you live your life knowing that it could all be over soon, you’re willing to do extraordinary things. Fear is something to be tamed and harnessed and driven into the sunset.

We are all fools locked into our own hopes that maybe we will do something that matters. We are all searching for a way to save ourselves. All the ways we plaster over the wounds. Ours and theirs. But it’s becoming the most liberating thing not to save, but to share. To share deeply my wounds and the wounds of others.

I share their story because they trusted it to me. I share their story because I believe they will find a way to change their lives.

I get it. Because I don’t want to be reminded either. That there are race riots and terrorist attacks. That there are orphaned children in Syria or tsunami victims in the Philippines that still haven’t been able to rebuild their lives. Because the world is just too big and how can any of us really make a difference.

I share this with you because the brokenness in me sees hope in them. And that’s a message I want to share with the world. Take a moment to watch this video and see if the same message comes true for you. If it does, think of doing something about it.

Want to see more images from the community? Check them out on my webiste, here.